


Not Fast Enough

by writingforFUNandbecauseBoredom



Category: Naruto
Genre: Genin Namikaze Minato, Genin Uzumaki Kushina, Hiraishin, I'm terrible, Minato NO, Minato stop, Minato this is not how we cope with are teammates dying, Self-Destruction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 19:49:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20626592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingforFUNandbecauseBoredom/pseuds/writingforFUNandbecauseBoredom
Summary: Minato wasn't fast enough.He wasn't fast enough.They both died and he wasn't fast enough.Alternatively, the beginning of Minato's bad coping mechanisms. His friends intervene.And this is all why_is_this_a_thing_now's fault.Note: Very rushed i'm very sorry.





	Not Fast Enough

**Author's Note:**

  * For [why_is_this_a_thing_now](https://archiveofourown.org/users/why_is_this_a_thing_now/gifts).

Cannon fodders. That’s what the young children sent into war get called.

But once you make it to Genin, you don’t count as a child anymore. You are an adult. 

He knew this. He understood this.

He was a Konoha Shinobi, the Sandaime Hokage, his Hokage, whatever he says he has to obey as he is loyal-

“Thank you for reporting Minato, Jiraiya you may have a week off to mourn.”

“Hai Hokage-sama.” 

A week.

A luxury.

Both of his hands feel heavy as they hold the two body storage scrolls.

‘I don’t want a week off.’ He thinks numbly, expression blank and blue eyes unseeing as his feet automatically go back to his apartment.

He needs to shower first before handing his teammates back.

It’s enough of an excuse the let the dam break as he cries under the shower head, taking in deep breaths silently as the taste of salt invades his mouth. 

It makes him gag, reminding him of the metallic taste of blood.

————————————————

“This is how war is…. There isn’t much you can do. Anyone can die at anytime on the field.” Jiraiya-sensei tells him.

Minato knows that’s the truth. He thought he knew what he was getting into when he was speeding through the academy.....

His first kill hadn't effected him this badly. He remembers feeling numb more than anything, barely reacting while hiss teammates had, well, _reacted_.

(Sage it hurts thinking about them. He wants to stop relieving memories whenever he walks through the street. He wants to stop thinking about the family of those two.

Uchiha Keiko was loud, unlike her other relatives. She was stern, but had a teasing edge to her even if she would barely smile.

_"Mina... when did you learn to make anything other than a smile?" _

_No, stop stop, the red isn't stopping, it's spreading-_)

He thought he was ready.

He wasn't.

He isn't.

He's too slow. Too slow. His arms had felt like lead. There were too many, and he was too far, and he was _too slow-_

A rush of breath leaves his body as his eyes land on a pattern in the scroll he was going through.

He bought the scroll closer to him, blinking as the edges of his sight blur. 

Tears? No. There was no wet trail travelling down his cheeks, and he had already cried enough the first day.

Maybe he was lacking in sleep then?

No matter. That can be put to later, after he at least studies the seal, and copies it.

Hiraishin. The Flying Thunder God. 

The late Nidaime-sama's invention.

The invention that he used to be faster than the Uchiha's sharingan.

He feels his lips quirk up a little, feels something like excitement bloom inside him.

Finally, finally, finally-

He might just be able to be fast enough.

————————————————

The most shocking experience Kushina had in her life was when she heard Uzushio had fallen.

She had cried, had shut herself off and would have wasted away were it not for Minato and Mikoto barging into her apartment and intervening.

Now Kushina was experiencing the shock of hearing that Namikaze Minato had lost his teammates, that they had died right in front of him, and that Minato had been avoiding his friends.

Shikaku had a grimace on his face, a dark storm similar to the one that appeared when he had gotten the scar on his eyebrow, resulted from saving his teammates from certain death.

Inoichi, as he explained this looked worried and anguished, hand pulling at his hair every now and then, his eyes darting towards corners, as if the smaller blonde would appear any moment, as if he was searching for him.

Chouza hid none of his sorrow, for once his hand devoid of treats that seem to never leave his hand.

“Last time I saw him he had... walked out of the library and... Kushina... he was _grinning_.”

Grinning. Oh Kami.

Kushina never expected of Minato to treat loss well. He was an orphan, and she remembered how happy he was with his teammates, how happy Keiko and Koichi made him despite Keiko’s grumpiness and Koichi’s timidness. 

It’s all too possible for Minato to go mad from having something ripped away so soon from him. 

Without saying anything and thinking she begins running, ignoring Fugaku and Hiashi’s shout of surprise as she did so, running as fast as she can towards Minato’s house and keeps replaying in her head how she had locked herself in her room how she was wasting away-

And as she kicks her friend’s door down and immediately comes across to the sight of papers and splatters of ink-

She knows this is so much worse.

The blonde head of the boy didn’t so much as flinch at her entrance, carefully focused as he was on one of the many seals that were strewn across the floor, filled with traces of Minato’s chakra...

What made her froze in her steps wasn’t the sight of her scarily focused friend that had dark circles under his blood shot eyes and his very slightly trembling limbs- what made her froze was the thick, strong miasma that seemed to cover the entirety of the room.

The Kyuubi lets out a thrill from its cage that only she can hear, and it raises her hackles.

“Minato.” She says. Not ‘pretty boy’ or ‘girly’ like she does when she is feeling friendly or ‘Namikaze’ when she is feeling angry. 

She calls out his name because he’s scaring her to _death_.

He doesn’t answer her, cold blue eyes unmoving from the seal he’s etching into the ground, and her worry grows. 

Before she can think on what she’s doing she’s walking over, absently taking note of the chakra signatures of the other that appear on the door way into the small apartment. She recognizes them so she doesn’t waver her focus on the small blonde boy that has skin that is paler in contrast to his usually tanned 

She crouches besides him, and speaks, louder, grabbing his shoulders as she does so.

“Minato!”

He jerks in surprise, his thin hand dropping the brush and ruining his progress and all Kushina can focus on his how skinny his shoulders are, how thinner he seems to be- when was the last time he ate?

“Minato.” She repeats again, because she doesn’t know what else to say to this, hadn’t thought clear on what to do. She needs him to show signs of life, to speak, to answer her, to recognize her.

“Kushina…” he speaks, voice raspy from disuse. He blinks, rather slowly and Kushina’s hackles rise. “When-I thought you were on a mission?”

“We’re taking you to a hospital.” Fugaku’s stern voice that sounds disturbed breaks through Kushina’s rising panic. And she can see why he was so disturbed as well.

The seals had Minato’s blood mixed into them.

Minato had been doing blood sealing.

Shit.

Shit shit shit shit shit-

Before Minato can answer back with a frown on his face Kushina immediately pulls of a move befitting of a Genin kunoichi and picks his bewildered form up into a bridal style before marching right back out the door, ignoring his protests as she picks up speed right towards where the hospital is.

“Kushina-“

“Shut up.” She snaps at him, anger and worry boiling inside her. 

————————————————

“Blood sealing.”

Minato squirms a bit under scrutiny he’s become the subject of under the gazes of the other occupants in the room. He carefully doesn’t meet the others gazes, avoiding biting his lip and picking at the edge of the hospital blanket drapped over him. Even that small action would cause the Yamanaka heir to narrow his eyes though. 

“Without supervision even.” Jiraiya-sensei’s voice continues, tone sounding unnervingly monotone and it makes Minato unconsciously shrink further into himself, head lowering a bit and eyes firmly directed at his still ink stained fingers.

He’s tired.

There was shame for his recent actions, yes, but more than anything Minato felt tired. 

Instead of even more scolding his sensei heaves a sigh that sounds almost as equally tired, and he feels a hand settle over his head, callous and surprisingly gentle in the way it ruffles his hair. 

“Kid…” a deep breath. “Minato, I can’t lose you too.” And his voice sounds grieving, pained. 

It stabs at an unknown organ within the small blonde and causes tears to well in his eyes. 

Grief wells up like a repressed volcano in him, and breaks through the surface in the form of tears welling in his eyes and hands much, much smaller than the one in his hair gripping the Toad Sannin’s wrist.

“I’m sorry.” He says as the tears run down his face freely, uncontrollably, “I’m sorr-“ he chokes on a sob, and immediately a pair of strong, much larger arms presses Minato into Jiraiya-sensei’s coat, and he feels the tears running down faster.

“I’m sorry too.” And he can hear the thickness of anguish and tears in his mentors voice.

Neither the teacher, nor the remaining student pay any mind to the others that leave the room in order to give them privacy.

————————————————

“You know, this won’t be doing any favors to your height in the future.” Tsunade tells him drily.

‘If I live that long.’ He doesn’t say, but Kushina seems to read it just fine and squeezes his hand sending him a narrowed glance. 

Tsunade sighs deeply. “I’m going to give you a meal plan and supplements to make up for the alarming lack of calories. You’re not going on a C-rank for at least a week, and since I don’t trust you to actually take proper care of yourself I decided to inform your friends about it.”

At this, Minato scowls at the quirked meaningful eyebrow that Shikaku sends to him.

“Also, no seal work for an entire week.”

The expression he makes at that statement seems to amuse Fugaku so he throws a pillow at him.

Jerk.

————————————————

“Are you seriously going back to _that_?” Inoichi asks him, aghast, and Minato sighs heavily.

“If you mean back to my apartment, yes.” 

“That can barely be called an apartment.” Hiashi quips.

“It’s an apartment when you live off on D-rank payment.” 

He immediately regrets saying that. 

“No, no you’re _not_ paying for me.” He hisses not unlike a disgruntled cat at the various clan heirs that were his friends. Kushina throws her hands up with a look of indignation. 

“You have rich friends!!!”

“Yes.”

“_Take advantage!!!_”

“No.”

Unfortunately this was an argument that happened often, especially when he gets dragged into shopping sprees with Mikoto and Kushina. It irritates him really.

Usually he hides his irritation well, but his control over his emotions had thinned, and he could barely muster up the energy to smile.

An image of Koichi tricking him and Keiko into not paying for a team dinner briefly flashed to the front of his mind before it’s pushed back, shutting his eyes briefly and scowling at his brain. Of all times.

“-Fine then but we’re not letting you clean up that massacre.”

Massacre referring to the disarrays of paperwork and ink he had left around in his attempts to perfect the Hiraishin. 

“Why?” He flatly asks Inoichi.

“Because we’re not risking you getting obsessed with sealing again.” Inoichi flatly tells him. “And we have Kushina to help us out so we won’t be getting rid of anything important, or blow ourselves up while cleaning.”

They knew him surprisingly well.

“Fine.” Minato sighs. 

He can’t promise that he wouldn’t immediately begin working on the Hiraishin again anyways.

————————————————

Minato’s not sure how he ended up in a sleepover in the Nara household instead of sleeping in his own apartment.

But he can’t really think much on it when Kushina was cuddling up against him and flashing her chakra in a way that made him more than a bit sleepy. Kushina’s chakra had always felt more than a bit warm and safe against his chakra sensory. Strange, since Kushina’s chakra tends to drive away most animals, with exception of a few from the Nara forest. 

He had barely contributed to the conversation, opting to listen as Shikaku and Fugaku bickered about shoji tactics and Chouza and Hizashi talked about recipes. Mikoto was frowning at something Inoichi was saying as she knitted a rather long scarf with her fingers steadfast. Hiashi had opted to quietly sit next to them, not as sociable as his twin was. 

Nothing was okay. He doesn’t think he can ever be okay.

But at the very least he doesn’t have to deal with being alone.


End file.
